For instance, following the light in darkness is often - and quite literally - the answer to Kay's troubles. This lack of subtlety is further echoed through Sea of Solitude, too.
Add in the awkward dialogue and unambiguous monologues, and you sadly leave little for the player to unpick and ruminate upon themselves. Being stranded in a dark storm on an empty ocean desperately searching for light may feel like an effective visual shorthand for overwhelming loneliness, but other aspects - such as the bastardisation of her watery world and the monstrous caricatures of Kay and those close to her - are less compelling. Sea of Solitude is an intensely personal tale of loneliness and depression, delivered in an intensely personal way, and critiquing it feels like I'm dismissing the creator's own experiences - and who the hell am I to do that?īut the trouble with deeply personal stories is that while the context may be universal, the subtext is not. I'm uncomfortable writing that, by the way. The impact of each subsequent encounter is instead muddied by the one that preceded it, diluting the potency of the storytelling, and its stunning score and striking visuals are further clouded with clumsy mechanics, uneven voice performances, and inelegant metaphors that strip away the nuance necessary for such potent topics. However, this is the game's first encounter with one of the mysterious monsters roaming Kay's watery world, and what could've been a devastating final gut-punch instead set a precedent that the rest of the game couldn't quite match. If Sea of Solitude had finished here, it could've been a masterpiece. The events in this twisted parody of a school - if a little contrived - rocked me in a way I'm very rarely rocked, be that via a game or otherwise. It's ugly and it's painful and it's heartbreaking to watch, but it's necessary, too. I felt sick moving through the preceding chapter, piecing together its stark, unornamented message, devastated by the story it was telling but compelled to see it through. Meeting this monster and uncovering its harrowing backstory broke me in a way I hadn't quite expected.